We recently connected with Tracey Gates and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Tracey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
For the last 30 years I had felt like I had not yet done what I was put on this earth to do. For many years it was actually a comforting feeling of wonderful things still to come. I felt like God was telling me I had a higher purpose. I trusted for decades that it would be shown to me but as the decades came and went I was losing faith or perhaps, I had “missed” it. It wasn’t until I was in my mid 50s that someone suggested I answer the question “what comes so naturally to you that you don’t consider it a strength but that those who know you well would say is your strength?” The answer surprised me in its clarity – my ability to connect with others and be a good listener. To thoughtfully engage in the life stories of others and be a safe and trusted confidant. Until that question, it had never occurred to me that what I loved to do and what nourished me was a strength that not everyone possessed. I thought it was just who I was. That awareness led me to Life & Wellness Coaching and for the first time in my life I felt inspired and that I was living my purpose and using my gifts.
Tracey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am first and foremost a kindness ambassador. My roles as a certified life & wellness coach, workshop leader and author allow me a platform to share my mission to help people everywhere know they matter. I consider it a privilege and a pleasure to join someone on their life journey for a little while and hold their vision for their magnificent future for them until they are confident and ready to hold that vision for themselves. Helping people feel empowered and energized to be their best self is what nourishes me. I always ask my clients to step out of their comfort zone and write an unexpected letter of appreciation to someone in their life. This exercise is a wonderful way to get our your own head and fill your mind with the positive attributes of someone else. The feel good feelings linger in the writer and the lucky recipient gets a gift. A few years ago I was going through a difficult work situation while caring for my aging mother and being bombarded daily with the negative and depleting news of the day. Seemingly out of the blue, I developed an auto immune disease called Polymyalgia Rheumatica causing horrible pain in my arms and legs. I attributed this all to stress.
I decided to conduct an experiment. If daily stress could cause my physical and emotional decline, what would happen if I added kindness to my daily to-do list? So, I challenged myself to write an unexpected handwritten letter of appreciation to a different person every day for one year. I wanted to see if I could tip the scales in my life back towards positivity and kindness. Those 365 letters of intentional kindness transformed my life. It brought almost immediate calm and mindfulness into my life. I felt my pain reduce and I found so much joy and empowerment in my life. I now give a workshop across the country called A Few Kind Words: The Power of Writing Unexpected letters of Appreciations. My inspirational journey reinforced for me the universal need we all have to be seen and to know that we matter. I deepened my relationship with everyone I wrote to. I realized very quickly that people rarely write letters like these and they are a gift that has the potential to fill a void in someone’s life. Most importantly, I like who I am being when I take the time to share my kind thoughts. Every single one of us is so much more powerful than we realize when we open up to this empowering, energizing and uplifting practice. We thrive when we are in relationship with one another. We crave connection and this is a simple and overlooked way to feel more connected.
The biggest surprise that came out of my year of letter writing was that I finally had a topic for the book I wanted to write for as long as I can remember. For decades I have been grappling with this internal fight. I knew I wanted to write a book but I never wrote and I had idea what I could ever be knowledgeable enough to write about. After countless people said to me through my journey, you should write a book about this, I finally allowed myself to listen to them. I took fear out of the driver’s seat and buckled him in the backseat. I then took my rightful place in the drivers seat of my life and on World Kindness Day, November 13, 2023, I released my book The Power of A Few Kind Words: Create a More Meaningful Life One Letter at a Time.
Becoming a life & wellness coach in my mid fifties was like finally taking a deep cleansing breath after holding my breath for too long. I was using my gifts and settling into my purpose. I thought that I had landed on that elusive purpose but there was still more to come than I could ever have imagined. Out of coaching came my joyful intentional kindness practice of sharing your kind thoughts through unexpected letters of appreciation. That transformational journey led to speaking engagements and fulfilling a bucket list item to write a book. When we are using our gifts, the universe continues to open to us in beautifully unexpected and delightful ways. It’s never too late.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
I believe with all my heart that you can have all the training in the world but unless you believe in yourself and treat yourself with kindness and respect, it’s impossible to reach your true potential. I grew up with a very demanding mother and I strove for perfection. I didn’t want to disappoint her so I spent far too long trying to be her definition of successful….look the part and act the part. I spent very little time getting to know myself because it was all figured out for me. I don’t think I am alone in this. Parents always had the best of intentions for us, but it’s a shame that it took me and so many others until we are in our fifties to stop worrying so much about what other think. Cut yourself some slack, get to know yourself and love yourself. Let your authentic self shine. You are just as deserving of having a seat at the table as the next person. The sooner you can figure that out, the sooner you will not just succeed, but most importantly, you will thrive!
What I know for sure is that when we treat ourselves with the same care and kindness that we treat others in our life, then life becomes easier, more fluid and much more authentic. I always ask the participants in my workshop this question where there are no right and wrong answers: List 3 ways you were kind to yourself this week and list 3 ways you were unkind to yourself. Then I ask which one was easier to answer. This is just an awareness exercise to get you thinking about how you talk to yourself and treat yourself.
I encourage people of all ages to figure out what your strengths are and then align themselves with a profession and hobbies that let those strengths shine. Develop your own mantra that unleashes your superpower and recite it in the mirror every day until it becomes second nature. You can’t expect other people to believe in your worth if you don’t.
In my profession of life & wellness coaching I need to lead with kindness, compassion and respect. It’s necessary to build trust and rapport. It’s very hard to fake those character traits. The more you can show kindness and love to yourself, the more success you will find with your clients.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
Yes, but this time I would follow through. After graduating from college I worked for Proctor and Gamble in Boston in their Sales and Management Training program for a few years. I decided that sales wasn’t my calling and I applied to Tufts University’s Counseling Psychology master’s program. For as long as I could remember I wanted to hear people’s stories. I loved to listen and advise. In our college sorority I was the resident therapist and later in life in my job as Director of Alumni for a private school, my nickname was Oprah. I was excited to get accepted into Tuft’s program but I was newly in love and decided I didn’t want the pressure of going back to school, working on the side and having to give up precious time with my boyfriend, now husband of 36 years. I declined the acceptance.
Thirty years later is when I finally honored that calling I had in my twenties and got certified as a life & wellness coach. In hindsight, I wish I had accepted my admission into Tufts. I wish I had been willing to put in the hard work. I would have found my calling decades sooner than I did. However, upon reflection, I find it very interesting that my calling really never changed over thirty years. Your gifts are your gifts. Sometimes they just aren’t ready to be unleashed yet. Listen to your gut, honor your gifts and be willing to get a little uncomfortable in your pursuit of them. That is when the magnificent growth happens.
Contact Info:
- Website: I have 2 webistes. If you can , please use both. afewkindwords.net and traceygates.com
- Instagram: @afewkindwordschallenge
- Facebook: Tracey Gates Life & Wellness Coach
- Linkedin: Tracey Gates
- Other: Please share that my book The Power of A Few Kind Words: Create a More Meaningful Life One Letter at a Time is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Few-Kind-Words-Meaningful/dp/1960090380/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DP4JKO0C27B5&keywords=tracey+willis+gates&qid=1707260268&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
Image Credits
Patryk Larney